Where We Hear Temple Bells on the Mountain

Crossing the Yellow River : Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese by Sam Hamill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A very nice collection in very readable translation.

The subtitle for this book is "Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese," and it's mostly a survey of poetry from earliest examples (first century BC, or thereabouts) to nearly modern, as late as the 15th or 16th century, and includes dozens of poets. Nevertheless, about half the book is devoted to just three Tang era poets: Li Po, Wang Wei, and Tu Fu. But they dominate the history of Chinese poetry, so it's warranted.

Many of these poems are available in other collections made by other translators, and though I probably favor other versions of some of these, I enjoyed the translation overall. The meaning is as clear as can be while still looking and sounding like poetry. Though I've lately come around on poetry books with notes (Red Pine does a really nice job of this) I like the way that these poems are presented without intrusions. Perhaps we give up a little comprehension, like when I'm asking myself if the oriole here is just a bird or if the poet is making some comment on ministers of state--and there's something like that in almost every poem, with cranes and geese and the river of stars and towers overlooking rivers and other recurring images--but you can let other collections do the full explication of symbols and really dig in to the allusions. This one's just for the reader and the text, and there's a clean simplicity to that which I enjoy.

In any case, Chinese poetry usually does such a nice job with imagery, readers can enjoy the language without troubling themselves over every layer of meaning. Here's a poem by Yen Shu simply titled "Song":

An old song with new words,
a cup of clear wine--

last year's weather haunts
old towers and pavilions.

The sun sinks below the world.
Will it ever return again?

Nothing can be done
to delay the flowers' falling.

When the swallows come
like old friends returning,

I pace this fragrant
narrow garden path alone.

I don't know how many layers are actually in that poem, but even a mediocre reader can work through a couple of them, and they're wonderful.

A very nice job overall. I recommend the reader not skip the translator's excellent introduction, either. It's not just useful but interesting on its own and well worth the few minutes spent reading it.

I expect I'll come back to this book in the future, dig a bit deeper. Maybe look into more books translated by the same translator.

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